I just thought I'd best push out all my terrible ideas early on.

I should maybe point out that a lot of anti-tank weapons are shaped-charges. The idea is most of the force of the explosion gets directed into the hull of the tank.

Trying to take down a 40 foot tall battle robot with kinetic projectiles has its own fun challenges. Namely that anything that can get through that armour is going to have some crazy penetration, yo. (Try not to miss)

For power, if the mechs don't run on some sort of unobtanium (like super-science super-high density batteries or magic rocks) it's going to be some sort of petrol derivative.

Explosives are really heavily shunned cause of the whole "If you miss in an urban environment with an explosive of that size you basically just took out whatever got hit." And if that's a skyscraper, no one is happy.

Well fair enough, I don't wanna be Partypooper Mcnofun the third. If we end up using melee, sure. Mechs make no sense either, and I have no problem accepting that premise.

But, just for the record, militarily, it's kinda silly. I'm not sure what kind of weapons or armor exist in this timeline, but assuming it's 1990s technology, then the effective engagement range for anti-tank cannons would be something like 800 metres? At least? Maybe more. Like, that's the distance from which one mech could reliably kill another mech if its main armament was an antitank cannon. If they're using missiles, it'd be more. Whereas you, with your sword, have to be right next to them to even hit them, let alone do any sort of damage.

Mostly because I doubt a 40-foot mech would have much more armor than a 40-ton tank does nowadays. Mostly because, while the mech probably has a more efficient generator, the tank's shape is a lot more efficient. Much less surface area. Also much better at actually bearing weight. And tanks can generally kill each other without too much collteral damage. Like, you don't need a MOAB to knock out a tank, a 120 mm kinetic penetrator is usually enough. Or a guided antitank missile, which generally explodes with a bit more force, but isn't going to leave behind a crater of any sort. So there isn't really gonna be much collateral.

And hell, even if a mech had, let's say, 300 mm of armor (which is in the range of what they'd put on a WWII battleship), the munitions necessary to penetrate that still wouldn't cause any significant collateral damage. They'd be larger, certainly, but if a mech can carry that much armor around, then the mechs opposing it can carry 200-mm cannons.

Mind you, there is some potential, for closer-range combat. If we're going for a cold-war scenario, then a lot of battles will be urban battles, where shorter-range cannons or even flamethrowers can excel. That in general the kind of scenario where I could actually see a mech being moderately effective, since things with legs are generally better at moving through rubble-strewn streets than things without legs, and the height boost can actually help mechs get better impact angles for their weapons at ranges below 50 metres.

In general, I kinda think that, if mechs get deployed, they'd be deployed as infantry support in difficult terrain, and against heavily entrenched enemies, since they combine heavy, self-propelled weaponry with good mobility on difficult terrain.

Edit: Wow, that kinda got away from me there, but my point totally stands. Collateral damage really isn't a problem in tank-tank combat. There's no reason to shun explosives, since, at worst, you're gonna blow a small crater in the landscape. 40-foot robots aren't hard to kill.

In reality I have no problems with explosives, just trying to avoid someone getting pissed because they totally didn't see that rocket exploding their face off.

I also get slightly concerned about everyone coming to the same decision of Blow through all the terrain ever to reach our target. Its why I'm not outlawing them but I'm putting the warning on them that I will have the game kick the crap out of you if you just shoot explosives about willy nilly.

Gem, Gem, Gem. The important thing is that we all get mech sized combat knives so we can all get ourselves a good old fashioned knife fight.

Armour being a bit better is sort of taken for granted when you have mechs running around.

Besides, if the things move as fluidly as a human, you've got a machine that can sprint at what, 300km/hr?

Well, generally you don't shoot willy-nilly, you aim at the enemy, and, if you miss, you blow up a hill or something. Then you shoot again until you hit.

As for rockets exploding in your face, that's normally out of your control in a tank battle. Like, you can't dodge attacks. You can plan ahead and maneuver and take cover and keep an eye out for enemies that seem to be aiming at you, but in the end, someone's gonna take a rocket up the ass, and the only thing you can really hope for is that it won't be your tank getting blown to pieces.
That's kinda what's fun about modern combat, really. You can't be sure to win, you can just hope that you're on the winning side, and you're not among the x% casualties.

Dibs on the broken bottle. Extra points if it gets ripped from a comically large advertising display.

Well yeah, but 'armor's a little better' doesn't equate to 'swords are viable again!'.

I was thinking more 30 km/hr, actually. And that's still pretty generous. Even if you had a small nuclear reactor, you wouldn't get the energy to go much further than that, let alone the forces it'd put on the joints and stuff.

Edit: Also, apologies if I'm overthinking this but I just spent 6 hours studying tort law, and I'm desperately seeking a distraction. : D

I'm not claiming that swords are viable, nor am I saying they aren't. Like I said I'm not a master of tactics. They are merely there as an option. However there will be a pretty good deal of urban combat. And they probably will go closer to the 100 mi/hr (which is a bit less than 300 km/hr). Dispensing of the realism in that regard.

As for the "Aim, if you miss shoot again" I'll agree but I don't want someone to specialize in explosives and then get surprised when they destroy some major building and they end up taking flak in game for it. As I said before I don't want the stand-by tactic to be "Blast a hole until the way to your target is a straight line".

That being said. Gonna be eating fairly soon and then I'll start posting the specialty list.

Posting for interest and likely joining up. I have an idea in mind, but we'll see how it goes once the full character generation is available. Also, will we be dealing with any amount of rp in the more classical sense, or will be be doing primarily the mech missions?

Eh. Fair enough. Let's see how things work out. I'm okay with things. Speed seems excessive (tanks can sustain between 30 and 40 kph, normally, in an advance), but I'm going to assume it's a lot less if our mechs don't have a flat road to run on.

Mind you, these are just suggestions anyway, the degree of realism in your game is your call, obviously. I just read some cool alternate WWII histories, which employed mechs, rather than tanks, and which turned out really cool, so I was thinking you were going in the same direction with this? Regardless.

Gem, go watch Gundam or something. This is like that.